A Moral Tale?

Searching for "Happiness" on Google (yes, I know) I came across a site The Way to Happiness Foundation. which was promoting a free ebook entitled "How to Find Happiness".

This ebook seemed to be a common sense guide to better living, with happiness based on engaging in worthwhile activities. And there is only one person who can tell for certain what will make you happy - yourself.

It is claimed as the first non-religious moral code based wholly on common sense. There seemed to be lots of good advice, and emphasis on the Golden Rule from a moral perspective. Not quite unconditional love and compassion perhaps, but it still seemed to represent a giant stride forward for society.

So there I was prepared to buy multiple ebook copies for free distribution as a promotion for this site, when it became apparent that it was written by L. Ron Hub_bard (as an individual work, and not part of any religious doctrine).

The ebook seems to come without any strings, but is published by The Way to Happiness Foundation which appears to be an arm of the Ch of Scien_tology. And that organisation seems to have its shadow side which I would not wish to be associated with.

So now we have material which is fine as far as it goes, and is particularly suitable perhaps for young persons, but which comes from an undesirable organisation. Should one promote something that seems good even if it is from an organisation that seems bad?

There is a wider issue here, which is that the mind is incapable of discerning spiritual truth. [That is the weak version: the strong version states that the mind is incapable of discerning any truth, despite the mistaken claims of traditional science and the ebook in question.]

Resorting to Kinesiology, a form of dousing promoted by David Hawkins in his book "The Eye of the I" and elsewhere, confirms that:

• The ebook is good in itself,
• The Ch of Sc is not, and is best avoided,
• The ebook should not be actively promoted, beyond this article.

Now you have to make your own mind up about the claims of Kinesiology to act as a true bridge from the unmanifest to manifest form.

Eternal vigilance is required to discern the difference between True and False profits and organisations. But there are some warning signs:

• An organisational hierarchy interested in power, control and money,
• A single source of external authority, rather than authority lying within each person,
• A god who is an anthropomorphic projection, jealous, angry etc,
• A division of humanity into Us and Them, on whatever lines, even good versus evil (which are both positional except inasmuch as evil is just the absence of light or love),
• A written creed or set of infallible scriptures,
• Too much intellectual talking and not enough feeling or just being.

[The Ch. of Sc. is OK on some but not all of these.]

Which takes me back to the Quakers, who have neither creed nor hierarchy (in theory) and attempt to rely on inner experience and spiritual discernment.

Can the darkness be a vehicle for the propogation of light? Why not? And if darkness does not exist, being merely the absence of light, what then?

In practice I am happy to accept that perhaps we (or I) do not know anything. The task is then to do the best one can on a day to day basis, actually in line with the advice in the "The Way to Happiness" ebook discussed!

The negative institutions will evolve or pass away, their power is spent. So go ahead and get your free download of The Way to Happiness, see what you think and let me know.

But perhaps true or lasting happiness only comes from following a spiritual path to enlightenment, transcendence, god, the light, spirit or whatever you wish to call it?

John Wragg

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